Toccata, Adagio, Fugue for Organ, BWV 564

J. S. Bach’s mastery of organ technique and composition has often been remarked upon in my previous notes. Still, it bears repeating that the vast majority of his organ works were written when Bach was still a young man—that is, when he was employed as resident organist in three central German cities between 1703 and 1717: Arnstadt, Mühlhausen, and Weimar. The Toccata, Adagio, and Fugue in C Major, BWV 564, dates from sometime between 1710 and 1717 and contains features of both old and new music. While the opening movement, with its brilliant solos for manuals and pedals separated, echoes the long tradition of North German keyboard toccatas, the overall fast-slow-fast structure is rare among Bach’s organ works and indicates the influence of the emerging Italian concerto form. The delightful fugue may be classed as a dance fugue (in 6/8 time), but its real charm lies in the pregnant pauses that Bach later fills with counter-material. Between the splashy display of the toccata and the buoyant fugue, the composer places a penitential slow movement based on a pictorial walking bass line. The Adagio ends in a series of pained dissonant suspensions. Bach seems most intent on exploiting the contrast between these “learned style” melodic gestures and the ensuing playful animation of the fugue theme.

(c) Jason Stell